Fear of the Future/Unknown

Greetings. I had a discussion sometime back with a friend who has gotten extremely religious in the last year or so. We used to attend the same church, and I have not talked to her at length for quite a while. The first thing I noticed right off the bat, was that she seemed intense, uptight and really judgemental. She used to be laid back, and like to have her share of fun. In the course of the conversation, she told me how she was "convinced to change her life." She has stopped going out with friends, smoking, does not touch alcohol or step foot into the bar. She never was wild, just liked to have a good time now and then. She told me she stopped all of it and dedicated herself to religion. She said she was afraid of eternal damnation, and wanted to be sure of her future.

She asked me why I quit the church, and I just told her the truth. She told me that if I didn't seek the lord, I would have a bad future or something to that effect. I told her that in my viewpoint, the future does not have to be a bad thing. I am just living my life on my terms and the unknown could very well bring good things, not just bad.

Now I am not sure who "convinced" her, but they did a hell of a job. She has just totally changed. Several times she brought up the point about damnation and dying. Sounds to me like she is not really afraid of dying, she is more afraid of living.

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Hmmm....sounds like the simplest way to explain it is that someone told her Pascal´s Wager...and it worked on her. Dunno what else to tell you. Some people hear that they may have to go to hell when they die and get scared and go ahead and hedge their bets, and some people are told this and laugh it off as the ridiculousness that it is. I would ask this girl how she´s so sure she's hedged her bets properly. I mean, if you take into account the myriad of different denominations just in Christianity ALONE, many of which think they have the one true way, your chances of picking the right one plummet from 50/50, FAST. Then if you take into account all other world religions and their respective denominations...the probability of getting the right one isn't even worth mentioning.

Good point. I was just kind of taken back with the sudden change. It might be short lived, who knows. But then again, after I did some of my own research, I changed pretty suddenly as well, just to the opposite extreme. She was very anxious to explain why she did what she did. This actually started out as just an ordinary conversation while waiting for our take out orders, and it went from causual talk right to that very subject.

It seems like she is pushing on her hubby pretty hard as well. I can relate to that, as my own decision to deconvert drove a wedge between my wife and myself, and still exists to this day, regardless of how hard I tried, but I failed. life goes on.

As she was telling me about how good the change had been, I did ask her if it was so good, how come it makes her so uptight. I encouraged her to live her life, and not worry about the unknown. I am not going to preach atheism to anyone, but I did also ask her if she could absolutely prove what she was preaching to everyone else. If not, to think about living her life based on what she knows is real and can see and feel. About that time, my order came up and I was glad for that.